Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:14:18 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: 1985 Vanagon - Ford Focus Engine alternative
In-Reply-To: <ac1f198b0801111327s6cf7f69cjc16e4549df3affd8@mail.gmail.com>
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Hey all right.
I sure have to give it to you for low engine cost then, I must say. 240
bucks to 425 for under 10K miles 2 liter 4 valve engine...........that IS
like they are almost laying around in the street.
What, they crash a lot ??
In any case, that's what you want, a good tough engine that there are plenty
of and they're inexpensive. Major points for that for sure !
The way I work on cars btw, I can never just 'do the one job' ........i
always end up restoring everything in the associated area, so it's never
'just a timing belt job with me' ..........and I will for SURE say that
Soobie parts are very expensive. They're like Mercedes parts. I just got a
dealer thermostat - 17 my cost on the stat, not too bad, but almost 5 bucks
for the o-ring ? ............rubber must be awfully dear in Japan is all I
can say. A full set of SVX fuel injector and fuel rail seals is over 300
bucks ! so I'll never say soobie parts are inexpensive. And the cars are so
good, and don't crash that much that any 90's one is likely to have way over
150K on it. So in all the rated categories, Zetec has it hands down for low
engine cost and availability, with low miles too. That's worth a lot right
there.
Our subaru equivalent is the JDM used engine - about 40K to 50K miles on
them, around 600 bucks on the west coast. Not too bad, and not that hard to
swap in, IF it's a cleanly done conversion job.
I am waiting to see or drive a Zetec. The closest I've come is Daryl's
impressions on one he drove. Hey, I'm not down on them - they BETTER be
good ! I'd install one for a customer in a heart beat. I just wonder why
you are the only one extolling the virtues. Perhaps you addressed that
further down in your note.
Ok, so I'm on the wrong group - I'm on the yahoo one where nothing happens.
Send me a link, if there is discussion, or raves, I'd like to be in on it.
So how many are running ? Of Zetec conversions by you or anyone, in
vanagons, how many are there ? 20 ? It seems like that or fewer.
Are you fully 'up and running' with ready to ship bolt in kits ? The
impression, or perception I have is that it's always 'we're almost there'
............so what's going on there. The lack of customers raving about
them seems very odd to me, or complaining about them.....just no real world
feedback at all............seems very odd, like it's 'some mythical
conversion.' I assume they go just fine, I have a nice 7 mile long 6 %
grade of freeway right here for testing. I expect it'll zoom right up that
at 70 mph in top gear !
I'm not at all doubtful about the quality and good results- what keep
wondering is how come no body else is talking about them besides you - where
are the owners of these conversions ? I'll go to the site and see if I can
tap in.
I am always looking for the idea vanagon engine conversion of course.
Oh, about a 'high end' timing belt job. I talk to customers about 'levels of
repair.' For timing belt jobs I say the lowest level is 't-belt only'
...............then going up, sometimes it needs a tensioner idler also(
thinking about a common vw inline 4 say ) . Then maybe it needs cam and
crank seals, then sometimes, you want to do the water pump while you're
there, so 'jobs can grow' . There's about 6, 80 dollar guide wheels on an
SVX timing belt- I usually only do the one wheel that wears more than the
rest of them, and lube the rest of them with synthetic spray grease that
gets past the bearing seals, but if a customer or a fanatic wanted to do
'all the service parts that wear' on one of those - it's a lot of parts,
That's what I mean by a 'high end' t-belt job.
And to think, on an early Honda Accord, the bare belt is like 15 bucks,
and the labor about 40 minutes. That's very 'low end' . Timing belt jobs
run from 75 bucks to over a grand, depending on the car and what it needs.
You know that.
But get some out here, Zetec ! I am always looking for 'the perfect'
vanagon engine conversion. If you get any west coast owners looking for a
shop to do an install, I would be willing to talk to them.
...........but if I can't slam dunk it in there in 6 to 8 hours I'll be
calling you up !! ........just joking.
I don't do slam dunk repair ever, however, only clean solid work. Can't seem
to help stopping ever rust spot or lubing ever dry pivot point, or touching
up paint dings or whatever. Sort of an artist/restorer, not just a grease
monkey.
Hey- you should send a kit out to me..........I have fine running good
looking camper vanagons all over the place, and I can be your west coast
demo location, and you pay me a commission every time I help sell a
conversion for you.
And ..........I am trusting Jim, that anything from You FITS !!....like bolt
holes line up, and when I go to install a big bracket, I don't have to cut
some of the metal away with the torch because it won't fit otherwise.
Heck, people don't mind if it's expensive really, but they sure want it
to damn fit when they pull it out of the box and hold it up to the engine or
vanagon. Let me know if you want my shipping info - lol ! I most
definitely believe in you jim. I hope it's as good as I hope it really is
too.
.........or, I guess I'll have to go calling junk yards for focus engines
and harnesses and ecu's and try one of my own..........but I'm too swamped
with projects to do that, so you should just ship me a demo kit. ;-) !
Scott
www.turbovans.com
-----Original Message-----
From: jakiba@bostig.com [mailto:jakiba@bostig.com] On Behalf Of Jim Akiba
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 1:27 PM
To: Scott Daniel - Shazam
Cc: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com
Subject: Re: 1985 Vanagon - Ford Focus Engine alternative
On 1/11/08, Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
>
> This is quite a claim ( and I have great respect for your commitment and
> abilities jim )
>
>
> " .....anywhere after 100k it's worth swapping the engine to
> another low mile one so you have another new engine in the van,
> especially since it is about the same price and same labor as doing a
> timing belt on the other options."
> So, you're saying buying a low miles used Focus engine and swapping that
> long block into a Zetec vanagon is about the same price and labor as doing
a
> timing belt job on say, a subaruvanagon ?
You're right to stop this going through unquestioned. It'll depend on
the experience level, the specifics and the installer. But if the
question is can I, Jim Akiba swap a whole zetec in for about the cost
and labor of you Scott Daniel doing a timing belt on a subie
properly(things we each know well) then I say yeah. I just bought a 7k
mile zetec two weeks ago for $240 to the shop floor.. delivered. The
average is $425, all under 10k miles. How much do the subie parts
cost? On my 97 outback it was about $400 for everything from a dealer
for the belt and waterpump(this was in 02). The zetec will be back on
the road while you wait for the anaerobic sealer on the pump to cure
as well... good thing that won't be included in the cost. I totally
understand how you're skeptical, and that's fine. I've done subie
timing belts, and major repairs but wouldn't even suppose to render a
judgement unless that was true. Speculation will only get you so
far.You've never seen a zetec conversion in person have you scott?
That is going to change in May... so cherish your skepticism, for soon
it may fade away ha.
If we're talking about someone else doing the work.. then very likely
then too.. as the labor for the zetec swap is around 6-8 hours, and
you don't need to be at a foreign auto repair shop to do it. If labor
rates are commensurate with what they are around here, then I still
contend it's too close to be of consequence between the two.
> Care to mention some numbers, like dollars for parts and labor time
?
> And include fluids and filters and miscellaneous small parts of course.
> And yes, I do know exactly how expensive a 'full boat' SVX timing
belt
> job can be - like if you do 'everything* there....guide wheels, tensioner,
> water pump, seals, inspect oil pump screws and seals......etc etc. ....you
> could end up with a $ 1,500 dollar timing belt job, so it is feasible that
> you could equal that cost for a long block swap. But that's also the
> extreme high end on subaru timing belt jobs.
Hmm... high end? Never heard the term "high-end" used for a timing
belt swap ha... I'll say then that the low mileage zetec swap is also
high end because everything on the motor goes back to low miles when
you swap that puppy out... there is no low end I guess because the
high end is so inexpensive too.
> Mostly they'd fall in the few
> hundred dollar range on the more common 4 cylinder engines.
Yeah same with the zetec whole engines.
> It's all fun. Nothing is especially 'better' than everything else.
They
> all have upsides and downsides. It is good though of course to really
> believe in what you support, develop, and sell.
True enough.
> Why are there not more Zetec conversions ? Maybe there's bunches
of
> them on the east coast, but I get the impression there are only a handful
of
> them running.............?
There aren't more because we've only been around for 2 something years
now... and we had to learn how to become a manufacturer all the while.
The numbers will change.. there's one more while I was writing this
email that's 2% growth in user base right there.
> I believe I'm on a group list about them, and there's no traffic on that
> list. It seems there are hundreds of soobie conversions, and tdi's, on
the
> other hand.
You're likely on the yahoo group that someone set up, nobody uses it,
they use our site or our google group for the Core installs. Nobody
knows exactly how many of each of the others are actually out there,
not many vendors share the exact info like we do, some can't because
they just sell the parts. Central Control of the development and
support is really beneficial when you're dealing in small numbers such
as this, and vital if you need to keep the pace of development
extremely high. That's why it took 10 years for a subie turnkey to
come out, it took us 9 months from scratch and we still did it before
the subie... and it's funny because now we are moving to the kits
form.. instead of the subie which started as a kit and went the other
way. Much higher success rates starting with the turnkey and moving to
a kit as it allows, than the other way around. I would bet that our
success rate percentage wise is substantially higher than the other
conversion, but there is no way to know for certain because of the
lack of complete information on for the others.
Jim Akiba
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